The present invention relates to microprocessor (chip) power regulation. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and method for providing an appropriate amount of voltage to a microprocessor based on information received by a voltage controller from said microprocessor.
Typical personal computers utilize a power supply to distribute a base potential of, for example, five volts (direct current, DC) to the various components of the system. In a continuing effort to minimize power consumption as well as heat production, developers strive to minimize chip voltage requirements. In order to convert the initial five-volt supply to an appropriate value for the chip, voltage regulation of some kind is required.
A typical chip requirement has been 3.5 volts. In order to supply the correct amount of voltage to the chip, the manufacturer (or whomever may be the installer), reads a label on the chip providing voltage identification (VID) and, depending on the method available, ‘straps’ (by clip, solder bridge, etc.) the chip's pins in a manner to provide the necessary potential. As an alternative, the hardware manufacturer or configurer might avoid using straps (‘jumpers’) by utilizing a series of ‘fuses’. The manufacturer would burn a specific combination of fuses to encode the appropriate VID, describing the voltage requirements of the chip.
FIG. 1 provides an illustration of the parallel interface between a microprocessor 102 and a voltage regulator 104 via a communication line 106 in the art. Upon system configuration, the voltage regulator (VR) 104 interprets an encoded VID, which has been communicated from the microprocessor 102, and directs the appropriate amount of voltage to the microprocessor 102. With the five bits of resolution provided by this parallel interface, no more than thirty-two different voltage requirements can be identified.
With several parameters, such as minimization of heat and power consumption as well as performance optimization, affecting voltage requirements of today's chips, the variance in required voltage amongst chips and the precision with which the voltage is to be met is continually increasing. This, combined with the fact that typical voltage requirements of chips is steadily decreasing with the reduction of chip size, causes there to be difficulty choosing the appropriate voltages to be represented by the 32-value range such that the range has both sufficient variance and sufficiently fine granularity.
There are different systems in the art for transmitting information between devices for use in device configuration and management. For example, the System Management (SM) Bus (Version 2.0; SBS Implementors Forum; Aug. 3, 2000), a derivative of the Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) by Phillips Semiconductor™, was developed to provide a communication link between an ‘intelligent’ battery, a charger for the battery, and a microcontroller that communicates with the rest of the system. FIG. 2 illustrates the operational layout of a generic SM Bus. Device 1202 passes data, such as system management information, via a communication line 204 to Device 2206. To regulate the timing of transmission and reception of the data, a clock signal is utilized and is transmitted via a clock signal line 208. Although this system provides for transmission of management information, it has many critical deficiencies, as explained below, limiting its ability to regulate a microprocessor's voltage.
There is a need to improve current systems of microprocessor voltage regulation such that voltage range granularity and variance are increased and quantity of necessary pin connections is reduced, as well as several other desired improvements.